If anyone is hoping that Holland packages Filppula for a better player (Bobby Ryan, #1 dman, etc etc), you're dreaming. Slated to become a UFA, Filppula has ZERO value in a trade like that. The players that teams would most want for players like Bobby Ryan would include: Brendan Smith, Darren Helm, Gustav Nyquist or Tomas Tatar AND draft picks. No, they won't want Dan Cleary, Mikael Samuelsson, Ian White or Kyle Quincey.

They only way Holland even considers moving Filppula is if by April 3rd the Red Wings are out of the playoff picture. Playoff teams, or teams close to the playoffs will no doubt be calling Holland with offers for Filppula. And don't get your hopes up, they WILL NOT be offering players of Bobby Ryans caliber in exchange. They WILL be offering draft picks, lower level roster players and/or mediocre prospects. If your curious as to what that may be, look back at the past 5 trade deadlines and look at the returns for 2nd line forwards. The return will be something like that.

If the Red Wings are poised to make the playoffs, or are on the playoff bubble, Filppula will go nowhere. EVEN if they think he will sign elsewhere in the offseason.

you are not really silly enough to judge any player on 7 games are you? Didn't Smith have a great little 8 game streak last year as well? The question with tatar is can he do it over 80 games? i don't think he can or will. Untill he plays a full season or 2, we will not know. I have said on many different threads, PLAY NYQUIST and Tatar so we do know. When it is all said and done, I beleive they will settle in as 40 point per year players. 18-20 goals and 20 or so assists every year. Horrible, no. Stars? No.

I agree. It is the type of move we need, but we will not make.

This team needs a quality top4 dman wayyyy before they need Ryan O'Reilly.

Holland has never done a full rebuild, because he ahs never had to. we do now. When the captain and shanny left, we were still a loaded team. Which he did go out a couple of years later and added Hossa, rafalski etc too. Now wea re not a loaded team and we are tied by the cap.

As for new, LOL! I have been a RW fan longer than most on thsi forum have been alive.

The team wasn't exactly loaded up front, a lot of players ended up stepping up to fill the void.

Rafalski and Hossa were added by that "key vet here and there approach" that you lamented earlier.

How is this team not loaded? They have plenty of depth, which has kept them afloat as injuries have piled up. They also have a lot of good young talent that is showing that they are ready to make a contribution as well. There is absolutely no reason for a "rebuild".

I apologize if you are a long time fan. No offense, it just doesn't seem like it....

What makes you think you'd be better at managing an NHL roster than our current management?

I wouldn't say bringing back Burt was bad he was very good last year. The biggest mistake with out a doubt was bringing in Krupp with out any other close to that bone head move

I wouldn't say signing Krupp was a mistake. A 6'6" Dman who could play in both ends of the ice that had won a cup with Colorado. He was supposed to fill the void left by Konstantinov. Bowman loved the guy, having drafted him in Buffalo. I don't think the Red Wings anticipated that he was going to get hurt and then go dog sledding while he was supposed to be healing. However, without that little debacle the Wings would have had no need to trade for Chelios later that season.

The mistake was lifting his suspension and letting him play the last year of his contract. He only played a handful of games before shutting it down for the regular season. Bowman decided to put him in the line up in Olausson's place at the start of the playoffs, and we lost thefirst 2 games to Vancouver. Krupp was like a -4 over both games. After that, he was done. Thank god we won that series and eventually the cup...

Hindsight's 20/20 on the first two. If you combine the regular season and playoffs, Franzen and Hossa had the same number of goals that season. Franzen seemed to be on the upswing, and he came cheaper. Retaining Hossa would've meant dumping another player as well. Since the Wings were in a cap crunch, retaining Franzen made sense.

The Quincey trade made sense to help alleviate the loss of atleast Stuart. He wasn't that great at the end of last season, but he has been coming around as of late.

Can't really dog the re-signing of Samuelsson yet because he's only played two games...

And finally, other than Osgood's last couple of years, I can't think of any veteran players that were ever a liability to the team. Did we hang on to Lidstrom too long?

I'm going to come way out of left field with mine....

I'm not going to say it was a mistake, but I always thought Holland should have signed Belfour instead of Cujo in the summer of 2002.

I was at the game yesterday. I can't stand the concourse. If you want to get up and not miss any of the game ,good luck because it is virtually impossible. Takes forever to go to the bathroom, takes forever to get food/drinks, takes forever to leave. Don't even get me started on the bathrooms... Kind of an embarassing story, but at a game last year my stomach became conveniently angry during 1st intermission. I needed to use the bathroom badddd, and not to pee.... I got to the bathroom and the line was massive. Once I made it into the fricken door, I saw ONLY 2 STALLS! Even with all the pee troth space, people were using the 2 stalls to pee while I waited in line. Once I got to one of the stalls, there was piss EVERYWHERE! So yea, that was my horrible JLA story...

Parking sucks too.I hate parking in the garage because you have to walk through that stupid tunnel thing at a snails pace. And I also hate parking on the Cobo roof, because after the game everyone is packed in that little entry way waiting for the slow elevators, and it takes about 10 minutes of shuffling through them to get to the stairs.

From what I've come to understand, the city wants the land that JLA is on to expand Cobo anyway...

I'd love to have them both up as well, but realistically, they have to comply with the 23 man roster.

To call up either/or both, they'd have to send one or two down, and all but Tatar would be exposed to waivers. I thought Tatar played a solid game, and deserves a second chance(hopefully on Datsyuk's wing), so I'd hate to see him sent down.

False.

Tatar is waiver exempt all season. They can recall him or send him back down whenever they'd like. His waiver exempt status runs out after this season. Same goes for Lashoff.

Ok, clearly you didn't read what I posted. I already have included lashoof, Sheahan, and Nyquist on the team. Ferraro is nothing, Andersson is a 12th through 14th F at best, and tatar is nothing more than a AHL forward. None of those guys is capable of posting a 40 point season in the NHL. Not one. You amy beleive otherwise, which is fine. But on this one I am right. So again, there is nothing to bring up. Cleary and Miller are UFA's. Emmerton and Mursak are RFA IIRC. That could be 4 more holes already, and we have done nothing to improve the team. At best it is a net neutral thing. But go sign UFA's. Again, with what money. We have 19 million to spend this off season, without trades or buyouts. But we also have to resign Howard 5-6 million, Filppula 5-6 million, and Brunner 3 million +. That basicly wipes out our entire FA budget. Now we could keep datsyuk and let Filppula walk. But why would you do that? Fil put up equal numbers to dat and is 6 years younger. Might be able to gt him cheaper as well. If you let Fil walk, then we get nothing. At least dat brings 2-3 NHL ready players back.

BTW, the 29 other teams in the NHL had a chance to sign Q last summer, and all passed on him. Now you think some teamis willing to give up something to get him? Very unlikely. But again, if we can trade him, DO IT! I would rather trade guys than cut them. We get zero from a cut. I don't care if we pick up just 7th rd picks. There is still a chance with those.

You really have no idea what you're talking about do you?

1st off, I made no mention of where prospects fit in the line up, I merely responded to your notion that we had no quality prospects. Also, where is your speculation on Ferraro, Andersson and Tatar from? I'm not saying that I know where they will end up, but Ferraro has made huge imporvement in just his 2nd AHL season, and Tatar and Andersson are near point per game performers in the AHL... All three are performing better than Sheahan, who you have included in your cute NHL13 fantasy.

Secondly, Quincey was an RFA this past summer. Do I need to explain to you what the difference is between a UFA and an RFA? 29 teams did not have the chance sign him, the Red WIngs held his rights. And before you blab about offer sheets, understand that they only come around for real CLUTCH players like top line forwards and top pairing dmen. For what Detroit signed him for, a team would've had to sacrifice a 1st, 2nd and 3rd round pick for him. I'm sure a lot of teams wouldn't have wanted to give up their first three picks in the next draft.

Lastly... Have you watched any games so far this season? Datsyuk has been this teams best forward. You want to trade him out of fear of losing Filppula via UFA? It's a good thing you don't have Ken Hollands job... For one thing, there's no way Filppula gets 5-6mil if the Red Wings resign him...

Quincey? No way. Franzen, very small chance. Which if anyone wants him, they can have him. Here is the thing about his bad contract. Even if he retires tomorrow, he is a cap hit for 8 more years. If we trade him or buy him out, no more cap hit. That is the only way to escape the 4 million per year cap hit.

Nice to see all the deep and insightfull posts. For those that advacate keeping datsyuk, franzen and the like, I poss you the question: how do we get better then? By keeping those contracts, and resigning the guys we should keep there isn't any money for FA's. There are also no other prospects ready in the system to replace what we lose. Don't let your fandom blind you to the realities we face.

last thing, no need to be rude. if you don't like what I think, that is fine. No need to be immature about it.

Umm. Sorry but both are Proven NHL players than can play in the top 6 of a lot of teams offense (Franzen) and top 4 of a lot of teams defense (Quincey). Quincey is a UFA after next season and is low risk, I'm sure a lot of teams would take a chance on him even though he is having a hard time in Detroit. Franzen has scored at a 20-30 goal a season pace the last 5 seasons and his cap hit isn't exactly huge. I'm sure a lot of teams would be glad to add him to their team for the right price.

We do have some good prospects in the system. Lashoff will most likely be a regular next season. Andersson, Tatar and Nyquist are all ready for shots at regular duty. Ferraro and Sheahan are both a couple years from competing for a spot. Mrazek is putting up good numbers in the net in the AHL.

The team is fine. When everyone (or most everyone) is healthy and the PP picks up, this team will be competitive. No need for a full scale rebuild that calls for dumping off just about everyone in the Red Wings Top 6 forwards...

A rebuild of the magnitude you are suggesting would give an XBOX360 the red ring of death if done in a season on NHL13...

By this logic, all of these teams are damned to having a terrible season, here's what I think we should do.

1) Watch hockey.

2) Repeat step 1 until 15-20 games into the season.

3) Use logic and see how teams are REALLY going to play the rest of the season after they actually play some hockey, get their bearings together from not playing in the NHL for so long, some not playing any hockey at all in 9 months, no preseason, and minimal training camps.

I've mentioned this before, look at the standings as we are 3 games into the season. The Flyers, Rangers, Canucks will in no way finish in the bottom of their respective conferences as they sit now, because determining the layout and future of a team this soon into the season is ridiculous. I'm not sure why this isn't understood better. This isn't the NFL where we play a dozen and a half games and even in a shortened season, starting 1-2-0 doesn't spell catastrophic scenario in my mind.